My Riley Quilt

July 21, 2015 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

My Riley quilt has arrived. If you have followed me on Facebook over the past year, you know that Greg’s older sister, Sharon, offered to make he and I quilts out of Riley’s t-shirts. We divided the shirts picking which ones were important to us. Greg and Riley went to concerts together. They both loved music. I was a booster Mom for band and choir. I went along to some concerts and I also shared his love of music. We chose our memories with him in the shirts we picked.

I had a hard time parting with the shirts that weren’t washed. They still smelled like him. I held them close. I stared at them trying to make myself, will myself to wash and send them. It was too hard. I wasn’t ready. I decided to not make myself do it. I waited.

And when it felt right, when I decided I wanted the quilt enough to let them go, I washed them, folded them and sent the box of our chosen shirts to Sharon. Right now, to be honest, I am missing the shirts again. I can see the remnants of the paisley shirts that I bought him and the Hawaiian shirts I picked out for him that he was so well-known for wearing. The one he wore that last evening that he was alive I miss the most. He had dropped it in the same spot in his room that most of his dirty clothes gathered. He had a hamper. He rarely used it! I held that shirt the most.

When UPS rang my doorbell today, I stepped out and saw the box and knew what it was. Sharon let me know that it was coming. I hurried inside, put it down, ran to my junk drawer to find a pocket knife and started to cry before I even got back over to the box. More quiet tears fell as I opened it and more came as I spread it out and admired it. When I wrap myself in the quilt, I will cry again.

Sharon said that it took her so long to make the quilts because it took her awhile to be able to open the box of shirts when they came to her. It was an emotional task of love what she has done for us. I have imagined being wrapped up in this quilt for a year now. I am forever grateful to Aunt Sharon. Bria and Braden have their quilts from her when they graduated from high school. She has done a quilt for all of her nieces and nephews at age 18. Riley’s was planned, but he died before she had the shirts to make his.

On my quilt are t-shirts from The Beatles, Rush, Weezer, The Ramones, The Doors, Foo Fighters, Dinosaur Jr., Jimi Hendrix, Reel Big Fish and Two Verse. There are specific memories for each band t-shirt I picked. Music was Riley and there are experiences he had with each shirt on or experiences he shared with me while in them that are my memories. I also chose one of his CHS Marching Band t-shirts. I was remembering lining up feeding the band during long practices and before football games. I chose a CHS Choir t-shirt because I have beautiful memories of watching him on stage with his long blonde hair in his sparkly red bow tie singing his heart out. I have a tender memory of watching him play his guitar and sing with a classmate during choir class. His choir teacher told me that she watched me watching him from the back corner of the room. She said she will forever remember my face in that moment. I also picked his Senior t-shirt because of the box of graduation announcements I had sitting on my desk that never got mailed. For the cap and gown that I bugged him to make sure that he got ordered. He never picked those up to wear on graduation day.

In the center of my quilt is the last gift Riley gave me. On my birthday in April, he gave me a Northern Arizona University MOM t-shirt that I hadn’t worn yet. I would have worn it proudly. He never got to step on campus as a freshman.

The times I scooped these shirts up off that pile in his room and washed them are on my mind. The times he sat himself next to me in them and said, “Mom, will you scratch my back?” The times I ironed the paisley shirts before he left the house on a date or for senior pictures. Senior pictures that he never got to see. Sometimes I sleep in his white under shirts. I kept those.

My love, my son, at 18 died from trying a drug the very first time. A drug that was bought online. A tab that was loaded way past the amount he thought he bought. Chasing a cool experience, Riley had a horrifying one that he wasn’t able to climb out of. I lost my son that night.

I hold this quilt of memories of Riley trying to remember how he smelled. How he felt when he hugged me in them. What he looked like in the t-shirts smiling at me and hearing his voice saying, “I love you, Mom”. I want so bad to look at his face alive and healthy with that twinkle in his blue eyes. I want to be able to smile back at him and say, “I love you, Riley”. I will have to hold him in my Riley quilt instead.

I Love You, Riley.

A Roller Coaster Ride

June 8, 2015June 9, 2015 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

Joy! Roller Coaster Ride, Choir Trip 2014

The pattern of Grief is a roller coaster ride. You never know what is coming day-to-day. There are good weeks and there are terribly bad weeks. I have recently made it through some of those terribly bad weeks that came with the one year anniversary of Riley’s death in May. I have moved into a feeling of numb but I am functioning. I am trying to recoop. I am trying to live. Once you go through one of the stages of grief, it doesn’t mean that you won’t ever feel it again. This I have learned. You might visit stages out of order, skip one, come back to another and repeat. My grief is not going anywhere. This I know.

This past weekend I attended The Great American Brass Band Festival in Danville, Kentucky. I took my chair and I planted myself on the grass with my camera in hand. What I saw around me were people of all ages eating ice cream, drinking drinks listening to music while sitting on the lawn. The stage was a gazebo. The backdrop was an old brick building, green grass, trees, pretty flowers with the sun going down and the fireflies blinking. As the bands played, children waved around light sticks. The patrons Moms, Dads, children danced close to the stage to the brass music from the bayou. The weather was perfect. The music was wonderful. Laughter echoed around me. I was thoroughly enjoying myself.

Staring at the band, I focused on the tuba player. Oh, so innocently, I thought… Riley would like this event. And there the sharp edge of grief snuck in. It crept straight to my eyes and they puddled. It leaked into my heart and it ached. It was a quick thought that turned into a slump of my shoulders, a limpness of my extremities and a squeeze of my heart. The joy of the moment was instantly replaced.

You see, Riley was a band kid. He had moved from the saxophone to the tuba his sophomore year of high school. He played the tuba well just like every other instrument he took interest in. On Friday nights, we sat in the stands at the football games to hear him play. Over the years we sat in the seats of the Chandler Center for the Arts for his orchestra concerts. I volunteered in the band’s booster club. Band was a part of Riley.

This being a brass band event, I noticed a lot of saxophones and sousaphones (tubas) in the parade the next day. That didn’t make me cry. I wasn’t crying all weekend. It’s just those moments that all of a sudden grab you and yank you down. Like on a trip to the grocery store I was in the frozen food aisle, I saw a frozen pizza made with white sauce and a memory of having dinner with Riley at a restaurant came to mind. He ordered pizza with white sauce. The instant memory of conversation and laughter during dinner that night hit me straight on. That evening we spent together eating pizza was not long before he died. It was a good night.

So in the middle of the store, in a split second my mind went from what do I need at the grocery store to Riley. The tears welled up in my eyes, they sneaked down my cheeks while I stared blindly at a cold glass door thinking about my dead son that I will never share pizza with again. People walked around me as I continuously wiped each tear until the tears ceased and then I resumed my hunt for the next item on the list.

The realization that this is my life is in my face. I will forever have thoughts of my son and subsequent tears. Riley was lost by a first time try of LSD bought online. My youngest boy who had a whole life ahead of him of college and a future is gone by a decision to mess with a drug. This is my life now because of his decision and the consequences of it.

I am me, but I am not me anymore. It’s like rediscovering life with a hole in my heart. It is trudging through the poop, the waste, the knee-high water that rises in front of me. Like a tide it disappears and reappears. This is grief. It is my life in the absence of my son who was a part of me.

I miss that part of me so very much. I am here living this altered life I didn’t ask for. What I ask is that my grief not be in vain. That the loss this world has suffered by Riley not being in it anymore be a story to be told to young adults who are and will be faced with the decision to try a drug. It is what keeps me telling Riley’s story. It is what has nailed me to the seat of the ups and downs on this roller coaster ride. It is my hope that lives are saved by my speaking out.

I Love You, Riley.

Always Be Yourself

May 18, 2015 / djuanadreed / 2 Comments

Riley and his best buddy.

Batman to the rescue with a little Star Wars help.

Riley’s ID badge for his NAU tour

Batman didn’t want his picture taken.

One of the things Riley is remembered for is encouraging others to accept themselves. That it is okay to be different. To love what makes you, You.

One of my favorite stories about Riley (and there are many) is that a friend of his was having a bad day. She was upset. He said, “You need a hug.” She said, “I am too big, you can’t pick me up.” He proved her wrong. He picked her up and he hugged her. He lifted her up in more ways than one with that hug.

Always Be Yourself! Be proud to be the Superhero that you are!

I Love You, Riley.

Time

July 22, 2014 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

Harvey MacKay said, “Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can send it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.”

Time stood still when Riley died. I didn’t know what day it was for the first month. I was in such a task mode at first. I dragged myself out of bed, showered and moved forward. The funeral plans kept me moving. Then the funeral was over and I feared what was next. What was next was pain that had gotten larger. The ache inside me got to a new level. I wondered how I would be able to function but I did function. I cried. I wiped my tears and moved slowly across my day. Each step is heavy. This grief thing is like carrying a heavy load. There is no getting it off your back. It’s always there.

Two and a half months later, I think time is my enemy. The pain is becoming stronger with time. How much worse can it get I wonder. It hits me out of the blue. A Riley memory happens, the pain floods through me and then poors out. One evening I was looking for a picture that my daughter asked me to send her. I came across a file on my computer of pictures from a Thanksgiving a few years ago that I hadn’t seen in a long time. There was Riley…. younger, his hair not even touching his shoulders with his arm around me smiling at the camera. I broke out in tears. I couldn’t stop crying. You know the swollen eyes, snot stuffed up in your nose you can’t breath kinda hard cry? It was one of those cries. It’s the realization that hits. He is not here. He will not be here. He is gone forever.

When I open my Facebook page and see my cover photo of him in one of his senior pictures that was taken only two weeks before he died, I ache to touch his face. It makes me so pickin’ mad that he won’t be looking at me again with a Riley grin. It is so real now that I won’t ever touch him again. I don’t want it to be real. I was hoping it wasn’t. I kept hoping I would wake up and he was back. If its only been this amount of time and it hurts this bad, how much worse can it get?

The pain of losing your child has to be the worst pain anyone ever has to go through. I am sure of it I’m angry that this happened, just really really angry. My sweet baby boy had a life ahead. Taken from him by a drug. A pill. The culture we live in promises drugs are cool. Smoking pot is the norm among teens today. Teens of all peer groups smoke pot-legal or not, they smoke it. Why not go for a different high and see what that is like? How about mix a few drugs and see what happens? It’s cool right? No, its not. No, its not when the drug causes harm to yourself or someone else. It can end a life. Riley’s story is not rare. It happens. Too often it has happened. It can and does happen by that one try. I HATE DRUGS.

How can I get this message out? How can we make sure that the risk is known that every time a drug is smoked, snorted, inhaled, or swallowed death can occur? Time is defined as “the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole.” There is no continued progress of existence or events for Riley. Time for me as a parent exists, but it is skewed to a point that I don’t know how to exist and progress without my son. Riley lost time forever by one decision to try a drug. Tell Riley’s story to the young and the old in your life. Tell it to the neighbors, the relatives, coworkers and the teens you know. Educate yourselves on the synthetic drugs that are out there being sold by online labs to dealers who don’t give a crap what’s in it or the outcome of its use. Talk to your kids.

I Love You, Riley.

Coffee, Money and Love

June 13, 2014September 11, 2015 / djuanadreed / 2 Comments

Sitting on the back porch, the house is quiet, the other two kids are sleeping and I’m imagining Riley sticking his head out the sliding glass door saying, “I’m going to Coffee Rush.” I’d say, “OK” and then I’d stare at him for what was next. He’d say, “Can I have some money?” and I’d say,”Really? You have no money?” and he’d say, “Well, I could use some money if you’d like to give me some.” And I’d say with a smirk on my face, “Yeah….” I would walk in and grab some cash, give it to him and say “Here ya go. I love you. This is an advance for the yards being mowed later today, right? ” He’d look at me and say, “Of course. I’ll do the yards….. later. I love you too..Thanks Mom”

The farther we get out from the day he died, the more it sinks in this is real. Amazing how good I am at times at not believing that he is not coming back. I don’t let myself think about the fact that he won’t just appear in a room with his smile and sweet demeanor to make my day. Then out of the blue, it hits me. There is a sinking feeling that wells up from my soul, the tears come to my eyes, fall down my cheeks and it hurts bad . It stings like no other sting I have ever had. I breath deep, I keep moving. I have to keep moving. I am afraid if I stop, I won’t get back up. I don’t want this to be real. I want my baby boy back here with me. Grouchy like when his wisdom teeth got pulled. Calling me for more Kleenex when he had a cold. Me being able to ask for help on my computer and him rolling his eyes because I just didn’t get it and it’ was so simple to him.

I hate that tab that took Riley from me. I hate the chemist that dreamed it up. I hate the lab that produces it and markets it. The dealer that bought it online and sold it to him. A drug on a tab in his mind that was going to give him an experience worthy of a 18th birthday celebration. Couldn’t the birthday dinner, present and family being together been enough? Couldn’t a get together with his friends at the house have been enough? The hugs and kisses and all of which were coming his way in just a few hours. Why couldn’t that have been enough of a celebration? Why did he have to go and try a drug that night?

Riley lost his life because of drugs. One decision made by him had dire consequences. Consequences that ended coffee with friends, reading a good book, playing his music, and sharing his smiles with whoever crossed his path . I wish Riley could stick his head out the sliding glass door today. I want to see his face right there looking at me because he had made a different decision on May 3rd.

I think I will sit here a little longer and imagine the last time he did just that.

I love you, Riley.

Thank You For Sharing

June 4, 2014 / djuanadreed / Leave a comment

THANK YOU for sharing Riley’s story. When I wrote that post, ‘I HATE DRUGS’ on Facebook the day after the incident, I was still in shock- well, I still am by all means in shock. Not sure that will ever go away. The rumors were already flying around within hours. I felt that I needed to share with my friends on Facebook as well as friends of Riley’s, what we knew of what had happened that night. As I wrote it, I didn’t hesitate, I laid it out there and did a call to action because that is how I felt. I wanted it out there so that the story stuck in people’s minds. So that other teens thought twice before trying a drug. I want the consequences of drug use front and center. From making one raw, personal post on Facebook, the story began to get shared. It reached Karina Bland who is a reporter for the Arizona Republic, the largest newspaper in Arizona. She felt led to share in the largest way she could- by writing an article. Low and behold the article made the front page of the Sunday paper and ya know what is amazing? As I’m writing this, there have been 10, 331 shares to Facebook from azcentral.com. That’s not counting the shares on Twitter, Linked in or by email. Karina said earlier in the day yesterday that 79,000 people had read the article from those shares. At that point there had been 7,000 Facebook shares from azcentral.com. As the shares have increased that means the reach of the article has increased as well………people are reading Riley’s story. People from all over and I mean, different states even Canada are messaging me telling me their personal stories of loss, their feelings as they have read the article, and their answer to my call to action to share the story. THANK YOU.

I received a message from a young man the same age as Riley, who just graduated from high school. He said he didn’t know or go to school with Riley, but they had a few friends in common, so he had heard Riley’s story somewhat through the grapevine. He saw one of his friends share the AZ Central story, and it caught his interest so he read it. He said he was in tears after reading it. He couldn’t even believe it. It had however changed his heart. A lot of his friends had been trying out acid, and had asked him to try it too. They told him it’s so much fun, and that it’s not dangerous at all. He said he was getting really close to doing it. He was even thinking about hanging with some friends and trying it this weekend and after reading my son’s story, he had decided that he will never ever touch the stuff. That he just wanted me to know that Riley changed his life. And he said, ” for that I am so thankful. Who knows what would’ve happened had I never read his story”. Did that give you goosebumps? It did me! It made tears fall down my cheeks. There it is! That is why I am sharing Riley’s story. That is why I am so thankful that you are sharing Riley’s story with whoever will listen because that share might be at the right time, in the right moment to change the path of a teen or an adult. I am going to venture to say that this stupid, horrific, all wrong story that I hate very much that it even exists could and will save a life. THANK YOU.

Thank you from Greg, Djuana, Bria, Braden & Riley.

10, 654 shares

I love you, Riley.